Lords of Football Critic Reviews

If Molyneux's Bullfrog had pulled an all night coding session while watching re-runs of Eurotrash, this is probably the football management sim they would’ve made.

Lords of Football seems like an old football game, that utilises humour to propose some dynamics of the football's world. Anyway, the gameplay is very very repetitive and schematic, and the graphic is way too old, but if you look at the representation of matches, you can see that there's hope for a better game from the same developer in the future.

Lords of Football comes to live in the rare moments when your front man scores a goal at the last second thanks to your timely instructions. The rest of it is sheer boredom without licensed teams and any depth at all.

The original idea to combine footballer’s life simulation dynamics with football manager’s management mechanics is surely intriguing, but not fully developed, failing to entertain for more than a season or two. It is like trying to get Balotelli and Mourinho to coexist: lots of fun for a while, bone-crushing in the long run.

Lords of Football has a great idea behind it, but it's an unripe fruit. After enjoying it for some time, you will inevitably notice some gaps in the gameplay mechanics.

Although Lords of Football has some nice eccentricities and touches, it fails and also feels old and dated.

Always dreamed of a night on the town with a famous soccer player? The statistics from traditional soccer management-games are traded in Lords of Football, for cheeky brats who prefer to spend entire nights at the disco: real soccer players. The game sits somewhere in between Football Manager and The Sims, but is never as good or as expansive as either of these titles. When the humor wears off you’ll just ask yourself: why am I still playing this?

It’s an interesting title if only for a few hours and with a hefty price tag it doesn't help itself in getting off the subs bench.

Even though Lords of Football has some interesting ideas, in a few hours the game becomes unbearably repetitive thing unable to challenge nor reward its players.

As a curiosity project for fans of the genre, I can only say that I’m glad Lords of Football exists; but as a full-price release it’s not something that can be readily recommended.

Soccer management meets The Movies – while the concept seems intriguing, the execution isn’t. The mechanics are superficial and for every aspect the game introduces there is another game that does it better, the mix just doesn’t add up.

Lords of Football's problem is that there's a load of well-established games which fare much better in almost every aspect it tries to simulate. You want to test your mettle as a manager? Get Football Manager or EA's equivalent. You want to simulate the daily life of different characters? Get The Sims or even The Movies. Because, in the end, just throwing all of these elements into the same kettle doesn't automatically make for a good game.

Lords of Football is not a complete football manager that allows you to spend hours on tactical options or scouting for players. On the other hand, it is not a social simulation of footballers' life - you don't have much control over that aspect. The game can look like fun for a short while, but after a couple of hours it kills you with repetitiveness and boredom. A few interesting ideas aren't enough to save this game from oblivion.